Kiting Is Not Just About The Tricks

When I was in the early days of my kiting journey, another kiter came up to me afterwards and said "the person that has the best session is the one that has the most fun" 👌

This stuck with me to this day.

Yes, you can learn new tricks and keep pushing yourself but if you're not having fun with it, then what's the point?

Kiting is about connection. Connection with the wind, the water, the ebbs and flows, other beings on the water and most of all yourself.

The Wonder of Wind and Water

There's something almost magical about the first time you harness the wind's power through your kite. That initial pull, the sensation of being connected to an invisible force that suddenly becomes tangible through the tension in your lines. It's a moment of pure wonder—a reminder that we're immersed in natural forces far greater than ourselves, even if we rarely pause to notice them.

Kiteboarding places you at the intersection of two powerful elements: wind and water. Unlike many other sports where the environment is merely a backdrop, in kiteboarding, the environment is your partner in an intricate dance. The wind doesn't just enable your sport—it converses with you, challenging you to read its subtle cues, to anticipate its shifts and gusts, to respond with your body and your equipment in a fluid dialogue.

This relationship with the elements cultivates a particular kind of wonder—not just the initial awe of your first successful ride, but a deeper, evolving appreciation for the complex patterns and rhythms of nature. You begin to understand the wind not as an abstract concept but as a living presence with moods, tendencies, and surprises.

Beyond the Tricks: Finding Flow

The kiteboarding community often celebrates progression—new tricks landed, higher jumps achieved, more technical maneuvers mastered. And there's nothing wrong with that pursuit. The process of learning, failing, adjusting, and finally succeeding brings its own rewards.

But as that wise kiter reminded me years ago, "the person that has the best session is the one that has the most fun." This simple truth transcends the sport itself and points to something universally valuable: the quality of our experience matters more than measurable achievements.

When we're truly having fun on the water, we're often in a state that psychologists call "flow"—that perfect balance between challenge and skill where time seems to alter, self-consciousness drops away, and we become fully immersed in the present moment. In flow, we're not thinking about how we look to others on the beach or mentally cataloging clips for social media. We're simply being, responding, and experiencing.

This state of flow is closely connected to wonder. Both involve a temporary suspension of our analytical mind, allowing us to experience life more directly and fully. Both create space for joy to emerge naturally rather than being pursued as an end in itself.

The Web of Connection

"Kiting is about connection," and this is perhaps its greatest lesson. In a world where technology increasingly mediates our experience, kiteboarding throws us back into direct relationship—with nature, with our bodies, with community, and with ourselves.

Connection with Nature

Modern life insulates us from the natural world. We control our indoor climates, travel in enclosed vehicles, and often experience nature through screens. Kiteboarding shatters this separation, immersing us in the elements and making us acutely aware of environmental conditions.

You can't kite without becoming a student of weather patterns, tide tables, and local geography. You learn to read the water's surface for indications of wind strength. You notice how different beaches create different conditions. You become intimately familiar with how temperature differentials between land and sea create thermal winds.

This awareness extends beyond your sessions. Former strangers—the phases of the moon, seasonal wind patterns, the formation of cloud systems—become familiar companions influencing your life's rhythm. The natural world is no longer backdrop but foreground.

Connection with Body

In our increasingly cerebral society, kiteboarding offers a powerful counterbalance—it demands complete physical presence. Your body is not just transportation for your brain; it becomes your primary interface with the experience.

The proprioceptive awareness required—knowing where your body is in space, feeling the subtle shifts of weight that turn or edge the board, the intuitive adjustments of your kite position—creates a heightened sense of embodiment. Many kiters report that this physical intelligence transfers to other areas of life, creating a more grounded, present way of being in the world.

Connection with Community

There's something uniquely bonding about sharing a passion that most of the world doesn't understand. The kiteboarding community develops its own culture, language, and rituals. From the shared excitement of a windy forecast to the collective planning of downwinders to the post-session tales of epic jumps and spectacular crashes, these connections create a sense of belonging.

More practically, kiting also demands community through its inherent risks. We rely on each other for safety—for launching and landing kites, for rescue if something goes wrong, for guidance when learning new skills. This mutual dependence fosters trust and genuine care for fellow kiters regardless of background or status in the world beyond the beach.

Connection with Self

Perhaps most profoundly, kiteboarding connects us with ourselves. On the water, there's nowhere to hide. Your fears, your tendencies toward caution or recklessness, your response to failure, your ability to celebrate success—all become vividly apparent.

For many kiters, the sport becomes a mirror reflecting aspects of themselves they might not otherwise see clearly. The focus required to kite safely leaves little room for the pretenses and personas we might adopt in everyday life. There's an authenticity demanded by the situation itself.

This self-knowledge can be transformative. I've witnessed anxious people discover surprising courage, perfectionists learn to laugh at their mistakes, and the chronically serious find childlike joy. The lessons learned through kiteboarding—about persistence, adaptability, fear management, and present-moment awareness—often ripple outward into other aspects of life.

Wonder as the Engine of Growth

This is where kiteboarding transcends being "just a fun sport" and becomes a vehicle for personal development. The wonder experienced on the water—the awe at nature's power, the surprise of your body's capabilities, the joy of community, the discovery of your authentic self—becomes a catalyst for growth.

As philosopher Erling Kagge suggests, "Wonder is the very engine of life." In kiteboarding, wonder drives us to continue learning, to show up on lighter wind days, to try new spots, to connect with new people. It fuels our curiosity about wind patterns and equipment options, about our bodies' capabilities and our minds' limiting beliefs.

Socrates famously claimed that "Wisdom begins in wonder." The wisdom gained through kiteboarding may not be of the academic variety, but it's no less profound—wisdom about our relationship with nature, about the balance between pushing limits and accepting conditions, about finding joy in process rather than outcome, about the power of presence over performance.

Carrying the Wonder Forward

The question becomes: How do we carry this wonder from the water into everyday life? How do we maintain that sense of connection, presence, and joy when we're stuck in traffic or sitting through meetings?

Perhaps the answer lies in approaching our daily experiences with the same openness and presence we bring to kiteboarding. What if we treated each interaction as an opportunity to connect authentically, each challenge as a chance to learn and grow, each moment as worthy of our full attention?

The wonder we experience on the water isn't just a pleasant side effect of the sport—it's a practice, a way of engaging with the world that can transform how we experience all aspects of life. It reminds us that beneath our busy, goal-oriented exteriors, we're still capable of deep connection, spontaneous joy, and genuine awe.

The next time you're on the water, feeling the pull of the kite and the glide of the board, remember that you're not just having fun (though that's important!). You're engaging in a practice of wonder that can ripple through your entire life, teaching you to approach each day with more presence, more connection, and more joy.

Because ultimately, the person who has the best life is the one who has the most fun—not in the shallow sense of constant entertainment, but in the deeper sense of engagement, connection, and wonder. And that's a lesson worth carrying from the water into everything we do.